


Fable

by StarWitch (Witchofthestars)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Action/Adventure, Angst, Beware: dumb writer writing geniuses, But I'm sharing anways, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Found Family, Humor, Mistakes will be made, Not A Soap Opera, POV Alternating, Relationship(s), Romance, Shamless, but no messy jealousy, expect this will be a long one folks, friendships, i make my own rules, mature content, maybe envy, the fic no one asked for, this is a romance and adventure story above all else, time lady - Freeform, we might even do twelve and thirteen, we stan Rose and Martha here, we'll see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:00:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28530339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witchofthestars/pseuds/StarWitch
Summary: The Face of Boe sends the Doctor on a journey to find something worth going to war for. And to find peace for.What he finds is a mystery in a woman who doesn't fit with the life she's been living. But whether she belongs anywhere else, remains to be discovered.
Relationships: Doctor/OC, Eleventh Doctor/Original Female Character(s), Ninth Doctor/Original Female Character(s), Tenth Doctor/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	1. For Whom the Fire Burns

**Author's Note:**

> Or the timelady fic no one asked for but I'm dishing it out anyways, thanks to my hyperfixation

* * *

* * *

London 2005

An endless stream of humans of every shape and color zipped by the dirty diner window whether by car or on foot. Some were on mobiles, some talking with those around them, and some were lost in their solitude though they were surrounded by hundreds of others.

He watched them with unseeing eyes, not paying his new traveling companion- Rose- any mind as she munched away on chips and pop. Instead of answering the human girls naive and invasive questions, he pondered the mystery that had been given him just a brief moment ago, while he and the girl watched her world burn away.

* * *

* * *

Platform One 5.5/apple/26

The room glowed orange, heat bearable but lingering, was heavy in the room. Those who survived Cassandra’s scheme were being treated for injuries… while those who had not survived were gently taken to be transported back to their families and homes.

Rose stood alone, looking out at the destruction of her home and he felt something slight, hidden deep, shift in him. A bit of understanding. 

_Doctor._

The Doctor shifted his attention to the legendary creature, far, far older than even himself, the Face of Boe. The ancient, leathery face, watching him from behind glass, spoke within his mind once more.

_I have waited long for this moment old friend._

The telepathic presence within his mind was welcome though it filled him with longing and pain. But he set these feelings aside and slowly walked to where the Face of Boe rested.

_I assume you mean this meeting between us, and not the chaos caused by one Lady Cassandra O’Brien._

_You are correct. There is a journey ahead of you… and it begins with this._

The Face of Boe’s eyes shifted to the nurse standing to the side, who wordlessly held out a clear triangular prism the size of his palm. The Doctor knew immediately what it was, and where to take it, but he couldn’t resist asking as he accepted the object.

_What will I find there?_

_Something worth going to war for._

The Doctor narrowed his gaze.

_There are very few things worth war._

_I was not finished my impatient friend._ There was a telepathic rumble, something like a Boekind version of a chuckle. _Something worth finding peace for. The universe written in ink and eternity in a heartbeat…_

_Poetic._ The Doctor rolled his eyes but tucked the prism away in his jacket pocket.

_I’ve had many, many lifetimes to think it up. She would have enjoyed it…_

That caught the Doctor’s attention with a lift of his brows. 

_She?_

But the Face of Boe did not elaborate. Instead, it gave a tired sigh telepathically then teleported away, it’s nurse a moment later.

* * *

* * *

London 2005

Now on Earth when it was still young and just beginning, allowing Rose a moment to remember that she was not alone- and a well deserved snack- the Doctor continued to ponder the interaction and pulled out the prism, searching for the etchings he knew would be on the bottom.

“What’s that?” Rose asked, her head titled curiously.

“A diamond. Given to me by the Face of Boe back on the platform.” The Doctor held it up, catching a ray of light and sending a ribbon of color across their diner table.

“Shut up. _Thats_ a diamond? A real dug up and cut diamond the size of my hand?” 

The Doctor grinned at her incredulous expression. “Impressed? But it’s not just a diamond. It’s a key.”

Rose rolled her eyes impatiently. “Off with the mysteriousness. A key to _what_ exactly?”

He sat back, tossing the key to her before folding his arms across his chest. “A deposit box in the Galactic Bank of Spire. On the bottom are the coordinates, floor, and box number.”

“And in the box?”

“Don’t know. Face of Boe didn’t- well he said some stuff, trying to sound poetic and mysterious- as most ancient beings like to do. But didn’t say specifically.”

“Must be bloody important if the key is a giant diamond, don’t ya think?”

The Doctor pondered that a moment, running a list through his mind on all the most important objects in all of the universe, attempting to piece together the clues, but frustratingly, he was coming up blank.

“What do you say Rose Tyler? Fancy a trip to history's most exclusive bank?”

Rose did that silly little grin of hers and tossed the key back over to him. “I’ll bring my chips; you bring the key.”

* * *

* * *

Galactic Bank of Spire 5.5/apple/26

After a thorough search of their persons that not even physic paper could get them out of, the Doctor and Rose were at last stepping out of the lift delivering them to the heart of the bank station. The room was pristine and white, with only the lift door behind them and the pedestal in the center of the room standing out.

Rose waited silently behind him as he carefully set the key in the center of the pedestal. Light filled the prism, covering the once white room with the all the colors of the galaxy. The system checked the validity of the key, symbols that he recognized as identifiers for the deposit box sped across the room, and once done, faded away.

The room was once more returned to unbroken white until a moment later, on the opposite wall a small drawer pushed out about a foot before stopping.

Slowly, the Doctor approached the drawer and peeked inside.

“Well Doctor? What is it?” Rose asked, but rather than waiting for him to answer, she joined him. “A book? All this for a book?”

A book, incredibly old by the looks of it, bound in brown leather with black lettering sat in the red velvet interior of the drawer.

“The Book of Incredible Whereabouts… never heard of it- and that’s saying something. No author on the cover… but looks human.” He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and did a quick scan before tucking it away. “No record of it, so not a published work, and I was right about it being human.”

The two stared at it for a moment, Rose already growing bored and wandered a few steps away to yawn, while the Doctor pondered the Face of Boe’s description.

“The Face of Boe said this was something worth going to war for. For finding peace… the universe written in ink, eternity in a heartbeat.”

“All that for a book?” Rose scoffed. “I like to read just as much as the next person- been nicking old Mrs. Beck’s dime romances for years now- but I don’t spect I’d go to war over them. C’mon, let’s go. I could use a shower and a nap after watching the end of the Earth.”

The Doctor was just as skeptical of the book but carefully picked it up and turned to leave, leaving the key behind, and joining Rose in the lift. 

Something within him was quiet.

But not in a way that meant he was calm.

A rarely acknowledged unease settled in his chest, and it kept him from opening the book to see what was inside even hours later. Rose had been sent off to find a room to call her own during their travels, while he left the book in the study of his own quarters, before returning to the console room to distract himself with nonexistent repairs.

Running away from the feelings the mysterious book invoked within him.

The Tardis only tolerated his messing about for a short time before she began shocking him every so often.

The latest one actually stung quite a bit and had him biting off a curse as he finally gave in. “Alright! I’m going! See? This is me- off to read the book! Satisfied?” His words were full of irritation but lacked any true anger despite his loud stomping, shaking out his throbbing hand as he went.

Once in his study, a small room full of messy piles of books, loose papers- some rolled up- gadgets, tools, and all manner of clutter, he turned on the desk lamp and settled in the winged back chair, running his gaze over the room. It was chaos that only he could make sense of, an assembling of centuries of travel all across time and space, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

There, same as he’d left it was the book, sat in the center of his desk, atop the schematics of an interferometer. The Book of Incredible Whereabouts. It was plain looking, with nothing to draw someone’s eye other than its aged wear. But- he supposed- even if the Face of Boe hadn’t handed it over, he still would have picked it open to give it a read. The only reason he hesitated now was the power Face of Boe had claimed it to have.

But he was nothing if not curious.

Holding his breath, he eased open the cover, running his eyes over every detail… at first with caution, and then with a greediness that gripped him fast, causing his hearts to race.

It was formatted as a journal, belonging to Bad Wolf- and obvious alias, and yes… human. Dated 1690… Salem Massachusetts. 

The Doctor knew the significance of the era and the place, but he could hardly understand what made the book so damned important from that alone… so he continued.

What followed, over the span of three years, were the stories this Bad Wolf had written. Stories that were impossible for a simple colonizer to have imagined up.

Every place in every story was real, somewhere out in time and space, existing as they do... and none of them even near the Earth. 

Planets like Gidu, with its brilliant storms, and for Jaconda\- even describing the stench of rot the once beautiful planet had fallen into.

Page after page, the Doctor ran his eyes over the neat, even script, reading about planets that he’d himself been to, some he’d saved, some destroyed. Some he’d only heard about but never actually been there himself.

So enraptured, everything around him disappeared. Rose could have run in screaming about Daleks, and he’d hardly have blinked he was so absorbed. He’d already decided to look into this author of impossible knowledge before he turned to the last entry of the book dated December 31st 1693.

Fields of deep red grass.

Mountains capped with snow.

Trees with silver leaves.

And an amber night sky.

The Doctor slammed the book closed, taking deep heaving breaths before tearing out of the study and his room.

Only one thought echoing through his mind.

He had to find them.

He had to find the author of the Book of Incredible Whereabouts.

* * *

* * *

Whispers followed Fable. Eyes full of suspicion and hate watched her every move. They watched as the woman who looked frail and more than a bit crazed, walked through the streets that were more mud than snow, of their once respectable town of Salem.

A town that was to have been a beacon of trade and growth, but over the past few years had fallen into chaos of sin and black magic. Of demons and the damned, sullying the God fearing that lived there.

Fable held herself stiffly while pulling her cloak tight around her for warmth, knowing she should have stayed home but only wanting to trade the eggs and butter she’d brought for a jar of ink, but over the past year, anyone who so much has shifted their eyes oddly was branded as a witch and burned without mercy till death.

And there was none more odd than her, Fable, the foundling of the lily’s, watched over by a wolf and raised by the old crone Thalia Crowe in the costal wilds of Massachusetts. Unmarried- being one of her greater transgressions, head in the clouds, and always with a blue jay quill pen tucked into her black hair.

She lived alone now, Mother Thalia passing on back when she herself was still an adolescent, living with what she grew or trapped on the small parcel of land left to her, and trading for anything else.

The only thing that kept her safe these days, was the fear the good people of Salem still had of her.

A fear she had done nothing to earn, but it was born of her silvery gaze that missed nothing. She’d heard it whispered that one look in her eyes, and she could see a person’s future and their past. See every awful deed they’d done or will do.

It wasn’t true of course… and even if she could, what was she to do with the information? Throw about accusations and demand their execution like the rest of them?

Fable hadn’t a violent bone in her body, nor was she wicked in any way. But as she continued on her way, Fable could feel the hatred the people felt for her was overcoming their fear… and she knew not what to do about it.

Leave the only home she had?

Confront them?

So many had died these past few months. Senseless killing over the most petty of things. And all unfounded. But there was no justice in a town like Salem… and it left her tired and despondent.

She’d hopped that with winter blowing in, the people would be too busy trying to survive themselves than to worry about if someone were cursing the cows to die of disease or if a husband strayed too far from his wife’s side. But the threat of winter did nothing to cool the deep hatred coiling within the community.

Keeping her gaze forward, she ignored the man stepping into the street, following her with a dark glare. When two women joined him, Fable kicked up her pace, trying not to panic.

A short rumble sounded from beside her, and she jumped slightly, pausing to watch as the stack of firewood outside of the butcher’s house crumbled down as if pushed.

Immediately, as if they’d been waiting for that exact thing to happen, the three following her cried out at once.

“Witch!”

* * *

* * *

Without word to the newly awoke Rose, the Doctor strode out of the Tardis the moment she landed, to find a dark snowy mid day.

“Doctor? Where are we?” Rose called as she ran to catch up to him.

Without glance or breaking his stride, he replied with a clipped tone. “I’m looking for the author of that book. The last entry- December 31st, 1693. Salem.”

“Alright… colonial Salem. Is that witch trial era?”

“Correct.”

They entered the old costal town, streets devoid of life and covered in fresh snow. The obvious architecture caught Rose’s eye. “Wow… we really are in the past. Time travel still takes me by surprise even after our little hop to the end of the Earth. Hopefully, I don’t get declared a witch for wearing this.” Rose muttered.

He glanced over, noticing her modern attire of jeans and bright pink zip up and sneakers. “I see what you mean. But never fear, all of Salem will have to get through me to burn you at the stake. Now come on, let’s see if we can find this Bad Wolf. Obviously, an alias, so might not be as easy-”

“Burn the she wolf! Burn the witch!” The shouts in the close distance called out, pulling the Doctor into a sprint, with Rose not far behind. They followed the shouting to the center of town, where a woman was struggling against the two men pulling her to the raised platform where bundles of wood and coal oil were being spread out beneath.

The people were crying out for her to repent and pay for her sins of witchcraft, anger and hatred vibrating the air and drowning out everything else.

“Oh God, they’re going to burn her alive.” Rose whispered as if just realizing that this distasteful chunk of history was indeed real. It happened, and now it was happening right before their eyes.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” The Doctor said gruffly, already shoving his way through the crowd.

As the woman was tied to the stake, a man walked the platform to stand before her and spoke with a voice that demanded quiet from the crowd. “You! The child raised by wolves and crows are accused of bearing the soul of a demon, of spreading the work of Satan through the art of witchcraft. You are sentenced to burn so that your evil is purified from the world, allowing peace and good faith to replace it. Repent all of your sins!”

A few spectators threw stones, one catching the condemned woman above her brow causing her to cry out in pain and blood to spill down the side of her face, one bounced harmlessly from her skirt, and another more sizeable stone caught her on the shoulder with enough force to twist her back slightly against the ropes.

Even from his distance, the Doctor could see the fear that gripped the pale woman. Even tightly bound as she was, she shivered, and he knew it wasn’t from the cold. Her lips trembled and her eyes gleamed with tears… but at his words, she drew herself up as much as she could and swallowed thickly, looking out over the crowd. 

Her voice was shaken, but she spoke her peace.

“I have known Salem… I have known all of _you._ My entire life. From chasing butterflies in the spring with Bonnie and Anne. To helping the Fosters with their calves in the fall. I have watched and been proud as our home flourished. And though my heart aches for the sickness that has gripped us… with my last words, I f-forgive you.”

The Doctor reached the platform and swiftly pulled himself up. “Now that's enough of that, I think. There will be no witch burning today.” He called out theatrically, causing an outcry from the crowd and the executioner to point at him threateningly.

“You will remove yourself from this town stranger, or you will be next!”

“I think not.” The Doctor pulled out his psychic paper and held it high.

“Bishop John Smith! Y-you honor us! We were doing the work of God, as you can see.” The man folded in on himself a bit.

“I have nothing to say to anyone who would commit such a heinous act. Cut the woman down, tear this platform apart and if I hear another word about witchcraft and magic, you’ll be hearing from a higher authority so high that your small little ape brain could not even comprehend. Am I understood?” The Doctor said with such command that the towns people moved to a safer distance and remained quiet.

“O-of course. Right away!” 

The Doctor waited impatiently while this ‘wolf raised’ woman that nearly was burned alive was released. He watched her eyes, but they remained firmly away from him, and rather than moving shakily to the hand he held out to assist her with, the moment she was free, she took off running, lifting her long grey skirt as she went.

He moved to follow her, but his attention was caught by the flash of something blue falling from her hair and fluttering to the snow covered ground.

A blue feather quill.

“You think that she was the author of that book?” Rose asked, coming to stand next to him while he picked it up.

“The last entry was dated today, possibly written this morning. The alias used is Bad Wolf, and they kept referring her-” he looked pointedly in the direction the woman had fled, “as a child raised by wolves. Only way to be certain… C’mon. Lucky for us, there's a delightful snowy trail for us to follow.”

* * *

* * *

Her hands were shaking. 

Heart racing.

Stomach churning.

But her feet were swift and sure as she ran faster than she’d ever had to run before.

Away from town, away from her home, away from the fear and hatred.

Running, lungs burning from the frigid air, but welcoming it none the less.

She was alive.

She was alive and she’d take the freezing temperatures and snow over the fire.

Where the path to the right meant the relative safety of her little cabin, she took the left and ran for the beach that was only a short distance away.

Evening was drawing near with the sun setting fast behind her, the wind blowing in from the east caressed her skin that felt hot and unbearable, as if she were still on that pyre and burning. 

Fable dropped to her knees in the sand, the crash of the waves drowning out the shouts of people echoing through her mind. Chasing away the voice of the stranger that had had her freed. The ocean stretched out in endless stormy grey waves capped with white, her mind a riot to match them.

“Did you mean it?” The voice of the man from the platform, the one who had sent an angry mob scurrying to escape his wrath, sounded from behind her.

She didn’t raise from her spot in the sand, but she managed to pull her gaze from the ocean to find him and an oddly dressed pink and yellow girl standing next to him. On that note, he was more than oddly dressed himself, but she didn’t have the emotional capacity to wonder about them just at that moment.

“Did I mean my forgiveness to the people calling out for my execution?” At his nod, Fable looked away, back to the growing shadows on the horizon. “I did. They are small and their own insignificance frightens them. I know the feeling well, so yes… I forgive them.”

Silence stretched out before the girl knelt beside her. “Are you alright?”

Fable glanced over to the beautiful young woman, the concern in her brown eyes was genuine and tugged at her, bringing fresh tears to her eyes that she tried uselessly to keep from falling. She held out a square of cloth, reminding Fable of the blood still running down her face. She accepted it and pressed it to the cut in her eyebrow with a wince.

“I’m always alright… I suppose I should be thanking your friend for his timely intervention.” 

He spoke up, having come to stand on the other side of her. “Right you are. You can do so over tea. I’m the Doctor, and this is Rose by the way.” 

“And I’m Fable. My home is not far from here… I suppose you have more than earned a cup of tea.” She said slowly, tilting her head back to look up at him when he lowered a hand to help her stand. She eyed it, the storyteller in her thinking of all the tales that hand had to tell. It looked like it was accustomed to working, to constantly moving and just _doing_ anything and everything. Strong, and well- _handy_. She slipped hers into it, her chest tightening at the first kind touch she’d felt in a very long time.

“Fable. That’s an unusual name for a colonial.” The Doctor said as he and Rose followed her away from the beach.

“The Doctor is an unusual name for a bishop who originally called himself John Smith.” She pulled the cloth away from her eye.

Rose laughed lightly. “I can’t believe she's not going to do the thing.”

“Thing? What thing?” The Doctor asked.

“You know… The whole Doctor who thing that gives you such jollies. And then you go ‘jus the Doctor’ all smug like it’s a joke that only you get.”

“I do not!”

Fable couldn’t help but to smile slightly at their picking. Laughter and teasing were something that life in Salem had forgotten about a long time ago. 

Soon she was pushing open the door to her little cabin, and immediately starting a fire in the stove and lighting candles. She turned to watch the Doctor and Rose hover near the door, looking around the single room. He was large and imposing, nearly filling the space with just himself, and Rose looked at everything with wide eyed curiosity that she’d once recognized in herself.

“Come in and make yourself comfortable. I apologize for the untidiness but well… guests are rare. I’ll make tea, and then you can tell me why you’re looking at me like that.” The last part was said while staring into the bright blue gaze of the man who called himself Doctor.

“You’re the storyteller… so you tell me. How am I looking at you? This is just how I look at people.” He stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and looked at her expectantly.

Fable turned away, dipping the bloody cloth into a pitcher of water, and cleaning her face blindly. “What makes you believe I’m a storyteller?” She paused when the Doctor stepped around her, slipped the cloth from her hand and replaced it with a blue jay quill pen. Looking up at him while he continued the task of cleaning her wound, Fable sighed. “Fine… yes I write. Something the more puritan folks out there would name as another one of my unforgivable sins. And you look at me with old eyes in a young mans face, as if I have answers that you don’t want.”

For a moment they stood there, staring at each other in the shadows of her cluttered little cabin, her waiting for him to tell her she was right, and he trying to shake her assessment off.

The silence was broken by Rose clearing her throat and stepping around them. “I’ll just put that tea on now if you two don’t mind.”

Fable nodded and drifted away from the Doctor to pull of her cloak and hang on a peg before handing over the old kettle to Rose who then set it atop the wood stove.

“Mind if I look around?” The Doctor asked, and barely waited for a nod before browsing the stacks of books and journals shoved into every nook and cranny around the cabin. 

“If you’re looking for proof that I’m a witch, you won’t find any. The herbs are perfectly safe for everyday remedies, the candles are not imbued with the bones of children, nor do I have jars of chicken blood and eyes of newts stored about.”

The Doctor flashed her a quick grin that lit up his face in the most charming of ways. “Oh no doubt you’d have me turned into a frog before I could find any such contraband.”

Her lips twitched and Rose laughed a bit.

He turned to the books near her neatly made bed, his fingers hovering over the topmost. The only one of the bunch that she realized she honestly didn’t believe was safe for anyone other than herself to read.

“No, I’m more interested in something besides bat wings and snake venom.”

Fable took a step forward, her stomach turning in fear. “Please…” She whispered, her heart sinking as he picked up the book that confirmed her madness.

But while he quickly scanned the pages, heedless of her quiet plea, he didn’t go back on the decision to save her from the pyre. Instead, he set it down on her bed, closing the cover.

“Doctor is that…?” Rose asked, coming to stand beside him.

He didn’t answer. Rather that, he pulled something from his shiny leather overcoat, and placed it on the bed as well.

The same book… only aged by many, many years.

Her Book of Incredible Whereabouts.

Where she wrote of impossible places.

“I don’t- how did you come to possess this?” Fable demanded breathlessly, sweeping over to pick up the old and battered copy, opening to find her hand writing perfectly copied.

The Doctor sat on her bed, holding the newer copy, the one she had just written in that very morning, once more and staring up at her with eyes that she knew missed very little.

“Let’s make a deal. I will tell you everything I know… but first I want to hear about you. Tell me the story of Fable, Rose the tea if you please.” 

Fable broke her gaze from his, busying herself with plucking up a couple of old cups for Rose and placing tea leaves inside to steep. Her hands shook, and she wasn’t certain that it was a fair trade… but she was hardly in the condition of mind to make demands.

Silence spread out between the three as she searched for the words to begin, staring at the quill still held in one of her hands. 

“Story of Fable. How to begin without making you believe I’m mad and deserve the fate that was to befall me earlier?”

Rose- always incredibly kind Rose, took her free hand and gave it a quick squeeze before backing away. “Fable, we would never believe that… right Doctor?”

“Rose is correct. Start at the beginning… It’s usually the best place to start a story.”

Drawing a deep breath, Fable did as he demanded.

“Alright. I was an infant, found in the forest by the woman who raised me. Thalia Crowe. She was old and half mad herself, but she took me in. Kept me warm and fed, taught me what she could, and then passed on. She cared for me, but she didn’t do me any favors, telling stories about chasing off a wolf that was hovering over me when she found me in the field of lilys one spring twenty eight years past. Sparked the rumors that I was raised by wolves it did. But she taught me to survive on my own, and so I have since the age of twelve. Until then I was a tolerated member of the community. Once I was alone… the people of Salem isolated me more and more, afraid of me. Why, I don’t know. They claim wild things about me, that I can see their sins, a power given to me by the devil, but what sparked these beliefs, I don’t recall.” She broke off a moment, her gaze distant. “Then the hysteria began, and people began dying. Their fear of me kept me safe for a time… but as you well know, their hatred overcame it, and you know the rest.”

“And this?” The Doctor held up her book.

“Impossible imaginings, dreams and fantasy. Nothing more.”

He seemed to accept that, though there seemed to be an incredible sadness in his eyes now. 

Suddenly, leaving his tea untouched, he began to explore the cabin once more, picking through a box of bits and bobbles that hadn’t been touched since Thalia’s day.

Fable caught Rose’s eye as she sipped her tea, but the girl only shrugged, her own confusion obvious. Right then. Her gaze followed his movements.

“You’re turn I believe. How are there two exact copies of my journal, one old and one new?”

He didn’t look away from his nosy task. “You tell me… I know you’ve been playing with theories.”

Fable blinked, realizing that he was correct. Some corner of her mind, the part that could imagine up planets with two suns and three moons. Of creatures with long dagger like fingers and planets that rained diamonds… that part of her that had always been dreaming of the stars, had been whispering of all the possibilities.

“Well… the most logical, would be that you are a remarkable ferret and able to copy my work perfectly- even down to the way I cross my t- all without my knowledge of your existence.”

The Doctor picked something up before turning to level a serious look at her. “And the not so logical theory? The one that terrifies you?”

Fable wrapped her arms around herself, wincing at the slight ache to her shoulder from where she’d been hit with a stone. “It only terrifies me because if I speak it aloud, then it means I am truly mad.”

Rose bumped her with her hip, giving a saucy grin. “No more mad than either of us. Go on then, tell us.”

Somehow Fable mustered up the courage to look the Doctor in the eye. “They are the same book… separated by time, and somehow the future version came to be in your possession, which you then brought-” her throat closed at the point making speaking difficult against the panic ”-brought _it_ bac-back. To this point in time.”

The Doctor gave a massive smile, looking extremely pleased, but she only felt exhausted. “And that makes the two of us…”

Fable didn’t reply but gave an accepting nod before dropping onto a wooden stool before her knees gave out. 

Travelers through time.

In her home.

In possession of something she’d only just written.

“That explains the clothing I suppose…” She said more to herself than to them, eyeing Rose’s masculine attire.

“Fable.” The Doctor drew her attention where he held up a small silver disc. “Tell me about this.”

She tilted her head with narrowed eyes. It was an odd little thing with circles upon circles etched into it. “Just one of Thalia’s oddities that she had lying about. I never asked about it… never-”

“Never really noticed something that’s been in your home your entire life.” The Doctor tossed it to her, and she caught it with surprising ease. “Perception filter, its designed to escape your notice, to always be just out of your line of focus.”

Rose peered down at it. “It’s a pocket watch… did they even exist now?”

“They did but they were more prizes of the wealthy. So, it’s strange to see here in the beginnings of America, but not completely out of the question. Tell me Fable… what do you feel, looking at this timepiece.”

Fable closed her eyes, holding the watch in both hands, searching for the correct words to describe how she was feeling. Voices whispered through her mind. “I feel frantic… afraid. A voice telling me to stay hidden… and there's pain- agonizing-” she sucked in a breath and dropped the watch, blinking back a flood of tears. “What is this? Why? Tell me, I can see that you know.”

Silence.

The Doctor dropped his gaze from hers.

Rose, looking from one to the other huffed impatiently. “Go on then Doctor. Tell us, what is going on with that watch? I thought we were here because of the book but there's more to it isn’t there?”

There was an agonized look about his face, startling in its contrast to the wide grin he’d had just a short time ago. And she feared he wouldn’t be able to speak it, the truth of what was happening.

But he let out a long sigh, plucked up the fallen watch and rubbed a thumb over the circle etchings.

“I believe you’re like me.”

“Like you how, exactly?” Fable interrupted, ignoring the irritated glance he sent to her.

“You wrote of a planet called Gallifrey. That’s my home world… I’m a Time Lord, and I travel through time and space in my ship called the Tardis. And one day, I’m traveling, and I come across an incredibly old being called the Face of Boe, and he sends me after this book, all mysterious and such… and all this leads me to this.” He held up the watch for a moment before dropping his hand to his lap. “To you. There’s this… device… a handy bit of technology that takes out the bits and pieces that make a Time Lord a Time Lord and stores it in timepieces. It turns us completely human, and the Time Lord part of us sits in these timepieces, waiting for us to open them, restoring us back to whole. That’s what this is… what you are. A Time Lady, hiding in the New World wilds of America, painfully human, but just odd enough that you don’t fit with the other humans.”

Silence followed his explanation, as did a terrible headache pressing behind Fable’s eyes. A yearning filled her chest as she stared at him, a hope that what he said was true, but a voice from the watch urged her to fight such feelings, to hide the watch away and to go back to the way things had been before he came into her life.

Swallowing thickly, Fable nodded once and stood. She slowly picked up the aged version of her book and slipped it into his hands as she took back the watch and wordlessly placed it back in the box, he’d dug it out of.

“You don’t believe me.” He stated, a bit of anger coloring his voice, but more disbelief than anything.

“I do believe you. But I wish for you to leave now. You rescued me; I expressed my thanks. You asked for my story, I gave it. I asked for yours, and you did the same.” She met his gaze with hers and tilted her chin up a notch. “I am quite exhausted after all of this. Please leave.”

“You can’t stay here Fable. You don’t belong here. They know it, I know it, and most importantly- _you_ know it.” He’d surged to his feet, towering over her… but not in a menacing way… more desperate than anything. Oh, there was danger in his blue eyes, but she knew somehow it wasn’t directed at her. 

“The alternative is to what Doctor? Open the watch, erasing everything that makes me me, replacing it with a stranger? Some being not even of this world! And then what? Leave with you and- what is it you said you do? Travel time and space?”

“Yes! Leave with me and see all those places you’ve been writing about. That you’ve been dreaming about! You’re doing so because your memories are there, buried deep down within your mind, and its only while you sleep do, they have power.”

Fable began to pace, shaking her head. “How could that be. I was a baby when Thalia found me. I have very vivid memories of falling in the creek and scraping my knee as a child. Of Thalia passing away. Of learning to swim in the ocean. Those people who wish me dead were there when Thalia found me in the woods- it’s all they can bloody well talk about! How could I remember all these fantastical places even subconsciously, if I visited them as an infant?”

“The fact that you even know what ‘subconscious’ is just means that I’m correct all the more. As for…” His voice drifted off, before he stopped her pacing with his hands on her shoulders, leveling his gaze with hers to stare into her eyes intently. “You regenerated into a child after using the chameleon arch. But-” He stood back and began his own pacing. “Where is your Tardis…” He spun back around to face her, a giddy excitement taking over. “Tell you what. You take the night, think it over. Rose and I will go back to my Tardis. If you decide to come, you’ll find us a mile to the west.” He backed away, never taking his gaze from her even as he opened the door, Rose hesitantly following. “And Fable… you wouldn’t have to open the watch until you’re ready. And the Fable that you are now, will always be there, she would just be something _more_.”

And with that he left. 

Rose took a moment to give her a comforting squeeze on her arm. “He means well, and its truly an unbelievably fantastic life… I hope you’ll come find us.”

“Are you like him?”

“Nope. Plain ole human me.”

“I see… and how long have you been traveling? Why? How do you fit into all of this madness?”

Rose shrugged. “Not long. Only just met the bloke a couple of days ago I suppose. Saved his life, and he asked me along. Figured he needed help doing what he does, traveling the stars and helping people. So, I said ok.”

“And that’s what you and he do? Help people?”

“So far.”

“And you trust him?”

“He hasn’t given me reason not to. Not yet.”

Fable nodded tiredly. “Thank you Rose… for your kindness and honesty. I wish you and the Doctor well on your travels.”

Rose didn’t- thankfully- try to push her into leaving with them, just quietly shut the door after her departure. 

She had the desire to watch them leave but instead she sat wearily on her bed, looking around at the sudden emptiness left in the stranger’s wake. 

Out of everything spoken between them from the moment they appeared at the pyre till their departure, one thing certainly rang true.

She couldn’t stay there.

Not anymore.

* * *

* * *

“Why didn’t you tell her that you were the last of your kind?” Rose asked as she caught up to the Doctor.

“She didn’t ask.”

“It might have convinced her though.”

“Or it might have done the opposite. Solidified that hiding away was the safest option.”

“So, your what… just going to keep that massive, little fact about the fate of her home- her true home- from her?”

“I don’t want to influence her decision any more than I already have.”

“But Doctor-” She cut off as he stopped just short of entering the Tardis.

“Leave it Rose. I accomplished what the Face of Boe wished. He led me to her, the last Time Lady, and yes, this is huge- it’s incredibly massive for me. But I’m not about to drag her kicking and screaming or to resort to pity and guilt. If she doesn't come- then I hope she has a good, long, human life though the odds of that aren’t looking great. If she comes with us as human- spectacular, I’m sure we’ll have a fantastic time of it.”

“And if she opens the watch? If she turns back into her true self? What does that mean?”

“It means that I can get the answers to how she survived the Time War.”

Rose shook her head. “Not only that. It means you won’t be _alone_.”

The Doctor felt a longing that started in his stomach, climbed its way into his chest, and entrenched into his mind. “Which means nothing for the survival of our species. Forcing Fable to open that watch just so that I’m no longer alone, would be the cruelest thing I could do… and trust me Rose- I’ve done more than my share of cruel acts. Now leave it… let’s see if I can find her Tardis.”

Hours later, Rose having gone to bed, the Doctor had reached a dead end. As far as his scans went, there was no other Tardis in existence.

So how did Fable come to be on Earth?

He ran his hands down his face and slowly walked toward the door, leaning back against it once he stood in the cold early morning. 

He wanted- more than everything- for Fable to come. And he told himself that it wasn’t so he was alone. Swore that it had nothing to do with the silence within his mind, the guilt on his shoulders. Instead, he focused on the mystery she represented. He wanted her to come, so that he could figure her out. Figure out how she was tied to the Face of Boe. How she survived.

But he remembered the fear in her pale eyes. 

He understood that fear… and he hopped she was everything he knew she could be.

For her sake, just as much as his. For if she stayed, those she so easily forgave would kill her, and then he would never know for certain. Perhaps Thalia had been the Time Lady within that watch. 

He dismissed the notion immediately.

It was Fable.

The Doctor watched the sun beginning to rise and decided to wait for a while longer. Wait for the woman who stuck quill pens in her hair and dreamed of the stars…

His breath froze a moment as a dark plume of smoke spiraled into the early morning sky.

Fire. A mile to the east.

“Fable.” The Doctor whispered, horror gripping him tight. 

Without another thought… he ran.

* * *

* * *

Sleep eluded Fable. Fear of her dreams, fear of her choices, fear of damn well everything, kept her awake. Eventually she gave up and stepped out into the dark night, the snow crunching lightly beneath her feet.

It was a bitter wintry night, but the winds were calm, and the sky was clear, allowing her a spectacular view of the moon and the stars.

Somewhere out there… all the places in her dreams were out there… life flourishing or dying. Battles being fought, won and lost. Love being found, betrayals breaking hearts, heroes being born and villains dividing good and evil.

And she was a part of them. A part of those stories somehow.

Fable sighed, the cold forcing her to return back to the warmth of the cabin. 

The Doctor was right… she didn’t fit here. But she wasn’t so sure she fit out there either.

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, the choices laid before her tearing her up inside.

A panic was rising within her, a need to escape, to run as fast and as far as she could, the same she’d felt up on that pyre while tied to the stake.

Fable made her decision and picked up a sack, dumping the potatoes it’d held onto the bed. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she went around the cabin, shoving belongings inside as she went.

Her best skirt, all of her stockings, as many of her books as she could- including the one responsible for all of this to begin with. Her box of seashells, and the small sack of coins she hid behind the woodstove. 

It wasn’t much, but it was heavy with the books and journals, the most expensive items she’d ever bought.

Her hands shook as she tied her cloak around her shoulders, held tight to the bag and stepped outside.

But she’d barely taken a step before stopping.

She was forgetting something… and it took replaying the entire interaction with the Doctor to remember.

The watch.

Quickly, and without really looking at it, she rushed back in and dug out the watch and dropped it into the bag. 

Finally, certain she was ready at last, she took one last look around the only home she could remember. It wasn’t filled with laughter or love. But it had kept her safe. And now it’s time was over.

Fable set her bag down outside, picked up the can of coal from next the wood pile, dumped it out on the worn wooden floor of the cabin and unceremoniously set fire to it with a candle.

She stood there a moment, the warmth of the growing blaze chasing back the cold.

Perhaps there was violence within her after all.

The people of Salem had wanted her to burn, and by an odd twist of fate, she’d escaped such a death.

Well, if she were running away, might as well give them the fire they’d wanted so badly. Only she was the one in control this time. 

This fire burned for her, burning away all trace of her existence, because she wanted it to. She didn’t belong here, and now she had proof of it.

Her heart was oddly heavy as she left the burning cabin, hefted up her bag, faced the west and began her journey in the early morning light.

But not with regret.

Fable quieted her mind as she walked through the sparse woods that eventually thinned to a wide meadow.

Far in the distance she could make out a dark figure running toward her, but she knew who it was.

And he seemed to know who she was as he slowed his pace but continued to walk toward her. Coming closer, his features more clear in the rising light. 

They met in the middle.

“You’re alright. The fire?” The Doctor ask after a moment of searching her face for any harm.

“Just giving the good people of Salem what they want.” Fable said quietly.

“And? Will you come with me?”

Now that this moment was upon her… Fable realized that she had no regrets now.

“I will… but I’m coming as I am now. And if it turns out that I don’t belong in this life you’re presenting me any less than I did in this one… then I want out. No questions asked.”

“Sure. Anything you say.” 

Fable wasn’t certain if she believed him, or if he even knew he was lying himself, but that was a fight for another day. 

“Be a gentleman please.” She said sweetly and held her sack of belongings up to him. After a blank look he suddenly popped into action and took the sack before offering his free arm with his signature grin.

“Allow me to escort you m’lady.”

The first true smile she’d had in ages curved her lips. And though she was afraid, she couldn’t deny that she was excited, and thoroughly charmed by this otherworldly being who sent righteous do-gooders scurrying and promised a walk through the stars.

She placed her hand in the crook of his arm and held on tight.

* * *

* * *


	2. The Unquiet Dead

* * *

* * *

* * *

  
“This is it?” Fable asked with a healthy bit of skepticism in her voice. She still held the Doctors arm in the early cold morning of January 1st 1694, more for strength than manners. The new year had come while she fret about her future and the knowledge that she’d been living a lie for the entirety of her life, and she had not even noticed.

Behind her lay the past, still burning away to ash that costal winds would spread across the wilderness. 

And before her lay… a bright blue wooden box.

“Yep! This is it. My Tardis… beautiful eh?”

Fable looked up to meet the Doctors pleased grin. It would not do to disappoint him she supposed, after all he was the one now responsible for her safe transport… in this… box. She wanted to ask exactly what a ‘Police Box’ was, but if there was one thing Fable despised, it was being thought of as ignorant. And this Doctor lad was an alien who’d been to the future and back, his knowledge was no doubt a great deal more expansive than her own. 

Besides, all it took was a bit of deductive reasoning and she could guess well enough. The box had something to do with law enforcement… and time travel… Fable decided to think on it more later. It was cold and she was tired from her sleepless night… best to get this on with.

“It is a lovely shade of blue. Exactly as my quill,” she said with a great deal of honesty, and refraining from calling it a shipping box.

“And so it is. Come along then! All of time and space awaits us!” The Doctor guided her through the door.

Fable stopped just inside the door.

Whatever she had expected inside of the little blue box… this was certainly not it.

A massive circular room- one that escaped the rules of logic, filled with a blend of pale green and apricot light, spires branched and curved from floor to ceiling, and a-a- _console_ proudly towering in the center. It took her a moment to realize that her mind had filled in a word that she’d never known existed before.

Slowly she walked up the ramp, the Doctor close behind her, to the console. All manner of buttons, lights, levers, and _devices_ covered the surface. The cylinder in the center hummed a comforting sound as she ran her eyes over it.

“The Tardis. That’s Time And Relative Dimension In Space… Well go on, say it. Everyone does,” the Doctor said cheerfully, coming to lean a hip on the console next to her, his arms crossed over his chest and watching her eagerly.

There as a specific comment he was looking for… Fable could see it in the twinkle in his eyes and the lift of his brow. Did he wish for her to comment about the impossibility of this ship? But she had already determined to cry off any of her ignorance. To accept what she did not know or understand and teach herself so that she might catch up to these more modern travelers.

Her pride demanded it of her. And she cared more for her pride than she did his.

And as impossible as it might be, it very clearly _was_ possible, after all.

“Your ship is very lovely indeed. There is a warmth about it indeed that has nothing to do with the temperature.”

His smile dimmed just a tiny bit, and Fable felt a twinge of guilt, for allowing her pride to dishearten the Doctor, had clearly been the wrong thing to do. But he was a stranger still, and though he had saved her life, she did not _know_ him. And she had still complimented his ship… indomitable male pride.

“I suppose there is. So, where to Fable? Past? Future? Another planet all together?”

He covered up his disappointment well, Fable noticed, and she feared she might be about to let him down once more so soon after the first time. Not off to a fantastic start then. She drew in a deep breath and faced him head on. “If I may… is there somewhere I might clean up and change? I didn’t sleep last night as you can imagine and I’m certain I look quite the mess after everything that hap-”

“Fable,” the Doctor interrupted her with a shake of his head. “Down the corridor, keep going till there's a door you like. Should be everything you need in there. If you’re hungry, the kitchen’s about somewhere. You’ll find it eventually.”

And just like that, Fable realized she’d been dismissed. In neither a cruel nor pleasant way. Just, dismissed.

Right to the point then.

Fable accepted her belongings from the Doctor and made to leave down the corridor that had been indicated. The only one at that. 

She felt as if she should say something, to make up for all of the mistakes she’d already made, but when she looked back at the man who’d swept into her life and turned it on its head, he’d already turned his back to her while messing about with the assortment of devices on the console before him.

The corridor seemed to snake on forever, curving and branching at random places, doors popping up, some disappearing, some open, others closed. It was disorienting at the beginning and Fable wondered how she was supposed to pick one that she liked. And then recall where it even was in this mad ship.

But then she caught sight of a ash colored door with the image of a blue jay in flight, his feathers spread to catch the wind, in the center.

“Well obviously I’m going to choose this one…” Fable whispered. There was much to wonder about, this seemingly impossible place with its flameless lights and magical doors. It was all together the stuff of her dreams, and familiar. And if the Doctor were correct, and she was something other than human, then it would be perfectly reasonable that she would already be familiar with all of this.

But that didn’t stop the icy fingers of fear and uncertainty from pressing against her spine.

Pushing past it, Fable opened the door and stepped into a lovely room that was in complete opposition of the apricot colored metal of the corridor.

Walls of soothing, ash colored wood, furniture of a dark walnut to include the largest bed she’d ever seen draped in blue jay blue quilts and grey pillows, a bedside table with a kerosene lamp, a desk with neatly placed paper, quills, and inkwells, a bookcase with empty shelves waiting to be filled, and strangely enough a fireplace with two overstuffed wingback chairs of the same blue upholstery placed before a small cheerful fire.

The room was alit with warm lighting that made her think of a spring day just at mid morning and welcomed her with a feeling of warmth.

But it lacked the clutter and personality of being a lived in room. At least for the moment. A certain excitement buzzed beneath her skin at the thought of turning this into her home. But it was still a bit too early on to allow herself to fall in too deeply.

In the wall opposite the fireplace were two doors. Opening the one of the left revealed a washroom of sorts, the one on the right a wardrobe with more clothes inside than Fable knew what to do with so she promptly closed the door and focused on something more… reasonable.

Fable set her sack on the springy bed and began to sort through all that remained of her past life.

The books- plays, a brief history of England up to the sixteenth century- as that was Thalia’s homeland, a handful of Shakespeare plays, and a book of numbers, all of which were from

Thalia’s time as a governess to a family of noble children.

They were worn and darkened with use, having been read countless times, but she felt they looked rather nice on the bookshelf.

The timepiece that she still struggled to remember, she placed on the mantle above the fireplace, and her blue jay quill on the desk in line with the others already there.

That done, she took her cloak she’d removed earlier, and the dark wool skirt she’d brought from the cabin, entered the intimidating wardrobe and made quick work of putting them away.

She’d decided to clean up before curling up in the bed while she still had the strength to do so. It was quite the experience turning knobs this way and that, adjusting the temperature of the water pouring from the spout high in the way.

It ended up being divine, washing one’s body with hot water and flower scented soaps and suddenly Fable found she quite liked this alien technology the Doctor had pulled her into.

That is until she found herself face to face with her image in the mirror above the sink. 

Fable had seen herself once, many years ago in the small hand mirror Bonnie had stolen from her mother for the day. It had been tarnished and blurry, but Fable had seen she had pale blue eyes, dark brows, and a nose that had been childishly hawkish. 

She could see she had grown into her nose but her eyes were now the ones dominating a pale, thin face, where the dark circles around her eyes, the cut near the center of her brows, and the dull hollowness of her cheeks were evidence of a hard year. 

She seemed… faded. Even her hair didn’t seem vibrantly dark anymore. 

But things were going to change… life had been passing her and she didn’t know what awaited her in this Time And Relative Dimension In Space ship, but she was determined to pluck up and face it head on.

That meant taking on the endless wardrobe and finding something to help her fit in with the Doctor and Rose a bit more than her current clothing. She accepted that fashions and standards changed with time, but she was still relieved to find the wardrobe contained an entire wall of dresses and skirts.

Fable felt decidedly modern selecting a solid black dress with a high neck, long fitted sleeves, and a skirt that fell to mid calf. It was loose enough that she could move easily and didn’t look half scandalous when paired with tall black stockings. The unrelieved black she divided with a blue sash around her waist and tried on a pair of soft grey boots that were a bit tight around the ankle but otherwise comfortable.

Examining her appearance in the mirror, she decided that while she didn’t have on trousers or wear bright splashes of color as Rose did, she was as close to modern as she felt comfortable with at the moment.

Yawning sleepily, Fable slipped off the boots and clothing, putting them away neatly before slipping on a warm night dress and tucked herself into bed where she dreamed of floating through the stars.

* * *

Pacing back and forth, the Doctor was growing ever closer to the end of his patience. More with himself than the fact that he was tired of waiting around. The longer he wasn’t dashing from place to place, time to time, the longer he had to fight off thinking about the war, everything he’d done, the discovery of Fable, and how he would one day have to face her.

Facing himself was already impossible.

Since he’d sent her on her way, acknowledging that she did look a moment from passing out where she stood- admitting that even a Time Lord- or Lady in her case, would have needed a bit of recovery from the past twenty-four hours, he’d done nothing but try and lock that nasty little thought from his mind.

He was not the last of his kind as he’d thought, but how did he tell Fable what he’d done?

He didn’t want to think about it, so he did what he did best, he pushed it down and locked it up tight. Ran away from the problem. He was good at that. Other people’s problems he could dive into headfirst, gladly, but his own… out of the question.

Someday, when Fable opened her watch, she would despise him- and he would deserve it. But that day wasn’t today.

“Doctor, you’ve got to get ahold of yourself. It’s only been what… twenty hours since you brought her in the Tardis? I checked on her a while ago and she was sleeping peacefully. Go watch some telly or somethin if you’re this bored,” Rose said while sitting on the jump seat and flipping through the Book of Incredible Whereabouts.

“Bored? I’m not bored,” the Doctor sent her a quick but hard glare before leaning back on the railing and crossing his arms.

“So, you’re worried then?” She drew of the ‘o’ in ‘so’ quite unnecessarily, trying to be cheeky.

“Worried? Why would I be worried?” He failed to keep the offense out of his voice.

“Oh, because Fable has been asleep for a very long time now and you’re itching to know why.”

“It’s been an emotional day. What else could it be besides exhaustion. She’ll be up when she’s ready.”

Rose gave a pleased nod. “Exactly. So, stop pacing and find something else to do.”

“Did I oversleep? I apologize, to the both of you if you were waiting on me.” The voice of Fable approaching drew their attention.

“Fable! Don’t apologize to him, seems he can never stand still for longer than three minutes.” Rose greeted her and hopped up from the chair. “You look well rested and the dress suits you.”

“Thank you Rose.” Fable said a bit hesitantly.

The Doctor silently agreed that her appearance had improved, from sick little human to sick little human with clear eyes and clean hair… blue feather sticking up out of the twist she’d pulled and pinned it into. “If you want, I can heal that for you,” he said, looking pointedly at the cut on her brow.

“Oh,” Fable whispered, looking unsure a moment before nodding silently.

Quickly he moved to stand before her and used the sonic screwdriver to heal the small wound. She watched him and the screwdriver carefully but otherwise did not interfere with his work.

Her lack of familiarity with the common bit of technology for their people reminded him that she was painfully human.

“There,” he said, stepping back. “Not even a scar. Now, how about Fable’s future, and Rose’s past? How does 1860 sound? Meet in the middle eh? Sort of the middle, give or take a couple of decades.” He moved around the console flipping levers and hitting buttons as he went. “Fable, hold this down, Rose turn this.”

The two shared looks before doing as he said.

The Tardis began its shake and wobble through the time vortex, causing the three of them to stumble and hold onto whatever was closest.

“Fable hold that one down!” The Doctor called out, noticing that she’d let go in the tumble. “No, hold that one down!” He repeated the order when he noticed the lever sticking up and that she’d grabbed a different one.

“You said this one!” Fable cried, wincing at a shower of sparks in her face.

“Well, hold them both down.”

Rose shook her head as both she and Fable stretched out across the console. “It’s not going to work,” she said with a groan.

“Oi! I promised you a time machine and that’s what you’re getting. 1860.”  
  


“What happened in 1860?” Rose asked.  
  


“I don’t know, let’s find out. Hold on, here we go!” The Doctor grinned at the mixture of fear and excitement on Fable’s smiling face and hearing Rose’s laughter, then pulled the final lever, launching them to their destination.

The shock of the landing sent the three of them tumbling to the grated floor where he lifted his head from, meeting the stunned faces of Fable and Rose, slightly anxious to their rough falls. While Fable certainly looked shellshocked as she lifted up onto her elbows, Rose burst into laughter, holding her stomach. 

The Doctor met Fable’s wide eyed stare and a moment later they too dissolved into laughter that was both relief at being alive, and just genuine amusement.  
  


“Blimey!” Rose said as their laughter calmed a bit.  
  


The Doctor helped both women to stand, glancing them over as he did so. “You’re telling me. Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I think so. Nothing broken at least,” Rose answered for the both of them.

“Is it always like that?” Fable asked shaking her dress out and tucking a wayward strand of hair back into place.

The Doctor shrugged. “More or less. And before you give judgement- I’m an excellent driver.”

The smile that was beginning to appear more and more often curved her lips.  
  


“Did we make it? Where are we?” Rose asked, eyes scanning the devices looking for a hint.  
  


Crossing his arms, the Doctor gave a pleased nod. “I did it. Give the man a medal. Earth, Naples, December 24th, 1860.”   
  


“That’s so weird. It’s Christmas,” Rose said with wonder.  
  


“Fable, you just had Christmas. How about that.”   
  


A far away look came over Rose. “But, it’s like, think about it, though. Christmas. 1860. Happens once, just once and it’s gone, it’s finished, it’ll never happen again. Except for you.

You can go back and see days that are dead and gone a hundred thousand sunsets ago. No wonder you never stay still.”  
  


“Not a bad life” he said with a shrug, pleased for a bit of recognition.  
  


Rose grinned, “better with three. Come on, then.” She plucked up Fable’s hand and turned to pull her down the ramp to the door, but he had a sudden thought. 

“Hey, where do you two think you’re going?” He called after them, bringing them to a stop halfway to the door.  
  


Fable and Rose shared a look before Rose answered. “1860.”   
  


“Go out there dressed like that, you’ll start a riot, Barbarella. There’s a wardrobe through there. First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left. Hurry up!”

Rose looked uncertain but Fable shook her head. “Rose is dressed no less odd than when the two of you strolled into 1693. You risked a riot then.”

The Doctor lifted his brows, surprised by the quiet woman’s sudden show of stubbornness. “We were in a rush to find you. No time for wardrobe browsing then. Now however we’re doing some proper exploration, so that mean’s fitting in. Off you pop then.”

As the two women headed off, Fable sending him a glance over her shoulder, he could hear her telling Rose that she’d been rather excited about the dress she already had on. Ah well, perhaps she would like nineteenth century dresses just as well.

* * *

Fashion, Fable found, hadn’t changed a great deal in nearly two centuries. With the aid of Rose and her hazy memory of fashion trends, they each found suitable evening dresses that dazzled Fable with their richly done beadwork and delicate laces. 

Neither made comments on how impossible it seemed for the already impossible ship to have rows upon rows of clothing of every style, color, and era. Fable had been intimidated by the wardrobe in her room, its immense size nothing compared to this particular endless sea of cloth and leather.

Rose looked divine in a black and deep red dress that showed off her shoulders, while Fable went with the black silk with cream colored embroidered flowers, a swath of cream silk rucked across the bosom and detailing the capped sleeves and underskirt.

“This is truly the finest dress I have laid eyes on,” Fable said as Rose replaced her blue jay feather for a beaded comb.

“Same for me. But I’m a girl who hasn’t even owned a dress in ages.”

Fable picked up the uncertainty in the younger woman’s eyes and gave her a quick squeeze on the arm. “You wear it perfectly. Like I imagine a nineteenth century princess would wear.”

With a charming grin, Rose deemed that they were both coiffed up enough and they wound their way back to the control room to find the Doctor laid on his back, messing about with wires.

**“** Blimey!” He called out as he stood and watched them come to stand before him.  
  


“Don’t laugh.” Rose said, still lacking confidence in her dress.  
  


The Doctor waved her comment away. “You both look beautiful, considering.”   
  


Fable narrowed her eyes while Rose fidgeted.

“Considering what?“ Rose asked.

“That you’re human.”

He said it as if it were a perfectly fine thing to say.  
  


“I think that’s a compliment… And Fable isn’t exactly human is she.”

“She’s just as human as humanly possible.”

Fable had just about had enough of this and stepped in to change the subject. “But aren’t you going to change?”   
  


“I’ve changed my jumper. Come on,” the Doctor waved for them to follow him.  
  


Rose pointed at him before he could take a step. “You stay there. You’ve done this before. This is mine and Fable’s.”

Fable sent him one last glare for his rudeness and hurried down to the door with Rose. She had mixed feelings about all of this, the uncertainty of what she would step out into.

A charming little village in the early evening with a fresh blanket of snow was not high on the list of her exotic imaginings. 

**“** Ready for this? Here we go. History,” the Doctor said, coming outside after them.

“If I remember my geography correctly- and please keep in mind the map I viewed was old even when Thalia brought it over from England… Naples is in Italy,” Fable commented, eyeing the snow and shivering a bit.  
  


The Doctor met her gaze with a wide smile. “Aye and what of it?”

Fable had never had to fight the need to roll her eyes as hard as she was in that moment. “Seems a bit snowy for a Mediterranean city.”

The Doctor’s smile froze, and he rushed off to buy a newspaper. “Ah… I got the flight a bit wrong,” he muttered as they came to stand beside him.  
  


Rose, still in wide eyed wonder shook her head. “I don’t care.”   
  


“It’s not 1860, it’s 1869,” the Doctor continued, causing Fable to huff a small laugh.

“That’s not all you got wrong, now is it?” She said.  
  


Rose still shook her head. “I don’t care.”

“And it’s not Naples,” Fable spoke for the Doctor as his shoulders dropped.  
  


“I don’t care.” Rose said yet again.  
  


Fable moved to stand before the Doctor and gave him a small smile and an arch of her brows. “Go on then Doctor, where are we?”

“It’s Cardiff,” he said with a sigh.

That stopped Rose in her tracks. “Right…”  
  


Fable shook her head. “Never heard of it. Alright Doctor so we’re in 1869 Cardiff, impress us.” She looked pointedly at his arm, spurring him into offering one to her and the other to Rose as they walked down the street. “My future… and in another country at that, traveled all that distance in just the time it took to flip a lever. Yet not much seems different other than this village is older and more developed than Salem. Busier too.” Her gaze swept over all the different people walking around them.

The Doctor hummed quietly. “Human civilization moves a bit slow for a long while. It’s in the next few decades, spurred on by warfare no less, that you lot begin to take off.”

“Always has to be a war does there not?” Fable said with a twinge of sadness as if something inside of her had witnessed a lifetime of warfare.

The three of them walked silently through the snow covered night, each in their own thoughts about the future, past, and overall dullness of Cardiff in 1869.

Until screams shattered the silence.

“That’s more like it!” The Doctor cried out with more excitement than was perhaps proper when screams of terror were involved.

He pulled away from Fable and Rose who shared a quick glance before following after, headlong into the rush of people screaming and fleeing a large building. 

Fable just barely caught glimpse of a blue wisp of _something_ escaping into thin air when they had shoved their way in.  
  


“Fantastic,” the Doctor said breathlessly before heading to what seemed to be a stage. Fable was not about to let him out of her sight, so she hurried after him. ”Did you see where it came from?”  
  


“Ah, the wag reveals himself, does he? I trust you’re satisfied, sir!” A man on stage with a pointed beard cried out with an accusing glare directed at the two of them.  
  


The Doctor hopped up on the stage then leaned down and pulled Fable up after him.

Her heart was beating madly from all the excitement and confusion surrounding her and she had to admit, it was more than slightly exhilarating.  
  


The voice of Rose reached them above all the chaos and she looked back to see her new friend running after an elderly man and a young maid carrying out an elderly woman. “Oi! Leave her alone! Doctor, I’ll get them.”   
  


Fable was anxious about it but the Doctor barely spared Rose a glance, just calling out over his shoulder as he pulled Fable up to the man on the stage. “Be careful! Did it say anything? Can it speak? I’m the Doctor, by the way. This is Fable.”   
  


The man glanced them over with a glare. “Doctor? You look more like a navvie. No offense to you madam.” His voice changing to a bit more polite as he took her for a proper lady.  
  


“What’s wrong with this jumper?” The Doctor asked her in full offense.

She eyed the shirt, piecing together that ‘jumper’ was the new word for shirt. “I quite like it I think, if not a bit low in the neckline. Scandalous in my time I daresay.”

“Don’t be cheeky,” he said with a playful scowl. His attention left her when the blue light flew across the theater into one of the lights along the wall. “Gas! It’s made of gas.”

“The sound it’s making is awful… painful even,” Fable said, trying to shake the unease it gave her.

“We need to find out where it originated from. Let’s catch up with Rose and those carrying out the woman,” the Doctor said, already hopping off the stage before turning to help her down as well.

As they hurried outside, Fable caught sight of the older man and young woman closing Rose into a carriage.

**“** Rose!” The Doctor cried out, sprinting after them as the carriage rolled away, Fable at his heels trying not to panic.  
  


The man from the stage spoke suddenly from behind her and the Doctor, startling her a bit. “You’re not escaping me, sir. What do you know about that hobgoblin, hmm? Projection on glass, I suppose. Who put you up to it?”  
  


The Doctor barely spared him a glance before plucking up Fable’s hand and urging her into the nearest carriage “Yeah, mate. Not now, thanks. Oi, you! Follow that hearse,” he yelled out to the driver as he rushed in after her, taking the seat at her side.  
  


“I can’t do that, sir,” the driver said politely.  
  


“Why not?” Fable and the Doctor asked together with matching tones of impatience, Fable not caring truly so long as it got them to Rose as soon as possible.  
  


The man from before had followed them to the carriage and poked his head in. “I’ll tell you why not. I’ll give you a very good reason why not. Because this is my coach.”   
  


“Well, get in, then. Move!” The Doctor cried out, but the man still hesitated.

Fable felt a bit vexed at the man. “Sir, they took our friend!”

That seemed to spur him finally into action and he climbed into the seat opposite herself and the Doctor.

**“** Come on, you’re losing them!” The Doctor yelled as the carriage finally lurched into a roll that slowly picked up speed. Much too slow for herself and the Doctor’s comfort as they both kept trying to look out the windows for a glimpse of the hearse.  
  


“Everything in order, Mister Dickens?” The driver called down from his seat, just barely audible over the sound of horse hooves on cobblestones.  
  


“No! It is not!” The man named Dickens called back, fury still in his voice.  
  


“What did he say?” The Doctor asked with astonished eyes.  
  


“Let me say this first. I’m not without a sense of humor.”  
  


“Dickens?”  
  


“Yes.”  
  


“Charles Dickens?”  
  


“Yes.”  
  


“The Charles Dickens?”

Fable’s neck was growing a bit weary from glancing back and forth between the two men. “I take it you’re familiar with him?”  
  


The driver interrupted the exchange. “Should I remove the gentleman, sir?”  
  


The Doctor leaned forward, excitement clearly on his face as he took the Mr. Dickens hand in his and shook it vigorously. “Charles Dickens? You’re brilliant, you are. Completely one hundred percent brilliant. I’ve read them all. Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and what’s the other one, the one with the ghost?”   
  


“A Christmas Carol?”  
  


“No, no, no, the one with the trains. The Signal Man, that’s it. Terrifying! The best short story ever written. You’re a genius. Fable, you two should get on famously.”  
  


“You want me to get rid of him, sir?” The driver asked again.  
  


Mr. Dickens no longer looked angry but very, very pleased. “Er, no, I think he can stay.”

Fable smiled gently. “Pleased to meet you Mr. Dickens.”  
  


The Doctor continued to smile widely. “Honestly, Charles. Can I call you Charles? I’m such a big fan.”  
  


“A what? A big what?” Dickens asked, sharing in Fable’s confusion.  
  


“Fan. Number one fan, that’s me.”  
  


“How exactly are you a fan? In what way do you resemble a means of keeping oneself cool?”

Fable leaned forward, catching his eye. “He enjoys making up terms, I think. Best to smile, nod, and just go with it.”  
  


The Doctor rolled his eyes at the two of them. “No, it means fanatic, devoted to. Mind you, I’ve got to say, that American bit in Martin Chuzzlewit, what’s that about? Was that just padding or what? I mean, it’s rubbish, that bit.”

“I thought you said you were my fan,” Dickens huffed irritably.  
  


“Ah, well, if you can’t take criticism. Go on, do the death of Little Nell, it cracks me up. No, sorry, forget about that. Come on, faster!” The Doctor split is attention between Dickens and the driver.

Fable placed a hand over her mouth to muffle her snort of laughter, deciding against tsking him for his rudeness because well honestly, he was right. She wasn’t familiar with the man’s stories, but criticism was criticism even if it was from a ‘fan.’  
  


“Who exactly is in that hearse?” Dickens asked, ignoring the Doctor’s last bit and her poorly disguised laughter.  
  


“It’s as Fable said. Our friend. She’s only nineteen. It’s my fault. She’s in my care, and now she’s in danger.”

Fable set a hand on his arm, drawing his gaze to her. “Firstly, _our_ care, seeing as we’re both of a more mature age than her. Second, we will discuss later the fact that she is _nineteen_ and out and about like this and not at home with her parents.” 

The Doctors expression was a mixture of determination and irritation, but he didn’t argue.  
  


Dicken’s only shook his head incredulously. “Why are we wasting my time talking about dry old books? This is much more important. Driver be swift! The chase is on!”  
  


“Yes, sir!” The drive called out.  
  


“Attaboy, Charlie,” the Doctor cheered.  
  


“Nobody calls me Charlie.”  
  


“The ladies do,” the Doctor waggled his eyebrows at Fable, grinning when she laughed a bit and shook her head.  
  


“How do you know that?”  
  


“I told you, I’m your number one-”   
  


“Number one fan,” Dicken’s rolled his eyes and looked away from the always smiling Doctor.

Fable leaned into his side, drawn to his warmth in a frigid evening, to quietly whisper to him, drawing his gaze down to hers. “You seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“Who’s your favorite author?”

She stared at him a moment, stuck between tossing out the only famous author she knew of to keep her pride, or setting him straight.

She chose pride.

“Shakespeare.”

“Right then, imagine sitting in the same coach as Shakespeare, and tell me you wouldn’t be impressed.”

The corner of Fable’s lips unwittingly curved up with a little shake of her head. “It takes more than being famous to impress me Doctor.”

There was something about the curious look in his eyes that made her… not uncomfortable but flustered. She quite liked that look in his eye.

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something but was cut off when the coach came to a sudden halt with the driver calling out that they were there. Taking a deep breath, Fable put space between them eagerly and accepted Dickens assistance down from the carriage.

* * *

“Allow me sir, madam,” Charles said once the three of them were outside of the coach.

The Doctor wanted nothing more than to throw open the door to the funeral home and demand to see Rose. But a small hand wrapped around his arm and he looked down find a pale Fable nodding once. “Alright, we’ll let the local take the lead on this.”

Her anxious expression didn’t disappear but the grip on his arm lessened a bit and they stood back slightly to watch as Charles used the brass door knocker.

A moment later and the young maid from the theater opened the door looking pale and shaken.

“I’m sorry, sir. We’re closed.”  
  


Charles did his part beautifully as he stuck his nose in the air and commanded obedience.

“Nonsense. Since when did an Undertaker keep office hours? The dead don’t die on schedule. I demand to see your master.”  
  


“He’s not in, sir.” The girl had spine it seemed…  
  


“Don’t lie to me, child. Summon him at once.”  
  


“I’m awfully sorry, Mister Dickens, but the master’s indisposed.”  
  


The gas light in the hall behind the maid flared suddenly. 

“Having trouble with your gas?” The Doctor asked with a lift of his brows.  
  


“What the Shakespeare is going on?” Charles whispered.

Fable pulled the Doctor forward a step and peered around the woman. “We need to find Rose first, and then we can discover the issue with these gas lights after. Excuse me, you’ve taken our friend, and we demand to see her. No use denying it, we know it was you and your master.”

The Doctor didn’t bother trying to hide is massive grin. He would have demanded the same, but the gas lights flared again, and he had to understand why. He left Fable behind with Charles and pushed his way inside the hallway, ignoring the maids protest.

“You’re not allowed inside, sir,” the maid tried once more to urge them out of the building.  
  


He pressed his ear against the wall below the lamp, meeting Fable’s gaze as she did the same.

“There’s something inside the walls. The gas pipes. Something’s living inside the gas.”  
  


“It sounds like the terrible noise the blue gas from the theater made,” she said with wide eyes.

“Open the door!” The faint voice of Rose reached them from somewhere further into the building.  
  


“That’s her,” Fable whispered, already turning toward their friend’s direction.  
  


“Please, please, let me out!” Rose called again.

The maid’s employer was running from the opposite direction and the Doctor quickly dodged around him, ignoring the man’s yells.

“How dare you, sir. This is my house!”  
  


All he cared about at the moment was the absolute fear in Rose’s voice. “Let me out! Somebody open the door! Open the door!”  
  


Without hesitating, he kicked in the door and pulled Rose away from two very dead looking people, only they were very much upright and not at all right.  
  


“I think this is my dance,” he said as Fable pulled Rose away from him and into a hug.

“Are you alright?” Fable asked Rose, but he didn’t look away from the animated man and lady standing before them.  
  


“It’s a prank. It must be. We’re under some mesmeric influence,” Charles whispered, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.  
  


But he knew better. “No, we’re not. The dead are walking.”  
  


Rose caught her breath. “I’m fine- I think. Who’s your friend?”  
  


“Charles Dickens,” Fable said flatly.  
  


“Okay.”  
  


“My name’s the Doctor. Who are you, then? What do you want?”  
  


The lad answered in an unnatural voice. “Failing. Open the rift. We’re dying. Trapped in this form. Cannot sustain. Help us.” The two of them suddenly tossed back their heads with horrible wails and the pale blue gaseous entities possessing them escaped into the air, the bodies falling heavily to the ground.

Silence echoed through the small group before Fable cleared her throat. “Is there somewhere we can sit… I think the six of us need to have a talk.”

The Doctor looked over his shoulder to see the maid and master share a look before he nodded once, clearly unhappy with the situation but perhaps finally willing to acknowledge that they needed help.

“This way. I’ll prepare some tea,” the maid said, turning to lead them to the living room.

“I’m Fable, this is Rose, and the Doctor.”

“And I’m Gwyneth ma’am. And this is Mr. Sneed.”

As they spread across the living room and Gwyneth moved about with tea, Sneed caught them up on the ill fated Mr Redpath, passing away suddenly as he grieved over his grandmother, only to become reanimated. Fable sat on the couch with Rose, holding hands and eyeing the gas lights, Sneed sat sitting sulkily in a chair, Charles sipped primly at his tea, while he himself leaned up against the mantle of the fireplace, wondering how much longer Rose was going to hold back on the anger that had her all flushed and fiery eyed. 

He grinned and winked at Fable when Rose suddenly stood up. She hadn’t had a chance yet to see the teenager give someone a piece of her mind, and she was about to get a front row seat.

**“** First of all, you drug me, then you kidnap me, and don’t think I didn’t feel your hands having a quick wander, you dirty old man,” Rose spat furiously in Sneed’s face.  
  


“I won’t be spoken to like this!” Sneed tried to interject, but it was useless for Rose wasn’t done with him yet.  
  


“Then you stuck me in a room full of zombies! And if that ain’t enough, you swan off and leave me to die! So come on, talk!”  
  


Finally, the man had the good sense to look ashamed. “It’s not my fault. It’s this house. It always had a reputation. Haunted. But I never had much bother until a few months back, and then the stiffs, the er, dear departed started getting restless.”  
  


“Tommyrot,” Charles sniffed, still in denial.  
  


“You witnessed it. Can’t keep the beggars down, sir. They walk. And it’s the queerest thing, but they hang on to scraps.”  
  


While the argument continued, Gwyneth placed a cup next to him on the mantle. “Two sugars, sir, just how you like it.” He watched her move away, storing that little bit of interesting info away for the moment…  
  


“One old fellow who used to be a sexton almost walked into his own memorial service. Just like the old lady going to your performance, sir, just as she planned,” Sneed said.  
  


“Morbid fancy,” Charles said with disgust.  
  


The Doctor himself was growing a bit tired of the roundabout argument. “Oh, Charles, you were there.”  
  


“I saw nothing but an illusion.”  
  


“If you’re going to deny it, don’t waste my time. Just shut up. What about the gas?” He directed the last part to Sneed.  
  


“That’s new, sir. Never seen anything like that.”

The Doctor nodded and moved to stand next to Fable. “Means it’s getting stronger, the rift’s getting wider and something’s sneaking through.   
  


“What’s the rift?” Rose asked.  
  


“A weak point in time and space. A connection between this place and another. That’s the cause of ghost stories, most of the time.”  
  


Sneed nodded eagerly. “That’s how I got the house so cheap. Stories going back generations.” Sneed didn’t even notice as Charles left in disgust, slamming the door behind him. “Echoes in the dark, queer songs in the air, and this feeling like a shadow passing over your soul. Mind you, truth be told, it’s been good for business. Just what people expect from a gloomy old trade like mine.”

But the Doctor had determined that the man had nothing more to add that would be of use and followed after Charles, nodding to Fable that Rose was in her hands. She looked as if she wanted to follow, but silently agreed that someone had better stay with their young friend, if not for her protection than to protect others from her wrath.

* * *

“Can you imagine Rose, how this night would be going if this were happening in Salem one hundred and seventy-six years ago?” Fable muttered as she and the younger girl followed Gwyneth from the living room, neither wanting to be in the same room as Sneed any longer than required.

Rose shot her a grin. “The whole colony would have been up in flames by now.”

Fable turned serious for a moment. “I’m glad you’re alright. Seeing them run off with you was awful.”

Her heartfelt words gave Rose pause and give her a small smile. “Funny enough, I felt the same when we first saw you tied up to that stake. Didn’t even know you, but somehow you were… I don’t know. Important to me.”

Fable gave the girl a squeeze of her hand. “You quickly became important to me too. C’mon, let’s go keep Gwyneth company.”

They found Gwyneth lighting a lamp and stacking dirty dishes in a tidy little kitchen, and wordlessly took over the washing, with Rose dipping the dishes into the soapy tub, and Fable drying them off with a flannel.

**“** Please, misses, you shouldn’t be helping. It’s not right,” Gwyneth tried to protest their help to which they both ignored.  
  


Rose flashed her a charming smile. “Don’t be daft. Sneed works you to death. How much do you get paid?”  
  


“Eight pound a year, miss.”  
  


“How much?” Rose asked, clearly horrified.

“Is that not a lot in the future?” Fable couldn’t help but ask.   
  


“Not by a long shot.” 

Gwyneth only shrugged. “I know. I would’ve been happy with six.”  
  


“So, did you go to school or what?”  
  


“Of course I did. What do you think I am, an urchin? I went every Sunday, nice and proper.”  
  


“What, once a week?”

Fable suddenly felt terribly uneducated even to Gwyneth’s paltry access to lessons.  
  


“We did sums and everything. To be honest, I hated every second.”  
  


“Me too.”

Fable smiled a touch sadly at their quiet laughter. “Well ladies, I fear this is where we differ. I was taught by my adoptive mother, everything she knew, and loved every moment of it. Always wanted to know more, but access to books and those willing to teach were far and few in between.”

Rose gave her a sad smile. “I suppose we were lucky to have access to an education. Not only did you miss out on learning, but all the trouble students get into as well.”  
  


Gwyneth giggled lightly. “Oh yes. Don’t tell anyone, but one week, I didn’t go and ran on the heath all on my own.”   
  


“I did plenty of that. I used to go down the shops with my mate Shareen. We used to go and look at boys.”  
  


“Well, I don’t know much about that, miss.” Gwyneth looked properly scandalized and even

Fable felt her cheeks heat up.  
  


“Come on, times haven’t changed that much. I bet you’ve done the same.”  
  


“I don’t think so, miss.”

“Fable?”

Fable sighed. “Only in my dreams, I’ll admit. A young man with a curly mop of blond hair, a wicked smile, and the ability to always find trouble.”  
  


Rose bumped her with her hip and grinned. “Those are the best ones. Gwyneth, you can tell me. I bet you’ve got your eye on someone.”   
  


“I suppose. There is one lad. The butcher's boy. He comes by every Tuesday. Such a lovely smile on him.”   
  


“I like a nice smile. Fable seems to as well. Good smile, nice bum.”  
  


“Rose!” Fable cried out with a half laugh, not sure what to make of all this talk about boys, smiles, and err bums.

“Well, I have never heard the like,” Gwyneth had turned beet red but smiled none the less.  
  


“Ask him out. Give him a cup of tea or something, that’s a start.”  
  


“I swear it is the strangest thing, miss. You’ve got all the clothes and the breeding, but you talk like some sort of wild thing.”  
  


“Maybe I am. Maybe that’s a good thing. You need a bit more in your life than Mister Sneed.”

There was something amazing about Rose that Fable was quickly coming to love. She might be young, but her independence was brilliant. Fable’s had been forced upon her at a very young age, but for Rose, she wore it well and wanted others to as well. Fable could see why the Doctor brought Rose along.  
  


“Oh, now that’s not fair. He’s not so bad, old Sneed. He was very kind to me to take me in because I lost my mum and dad to the flu when I was twelve.”  
  


“Oh, I’m sorry,” Rose said while Fable nodded sadly.  
  


“Thank you, miss. But I’ll be with them again, one day, sitting with them in paradise. I shall be so blessed. They’re waiting for me. Maybe your dad’s up there waiting for you too, miss.”   
  


Fable noticed Rose’s expression stiffen. “Maybe. Er, who told you he was dead?”  
  


Gwyneth dropped her gaze and turned away quickly. “I don’t know. Must have been the Doctor.”   
  


“My father died years back.”

Fable dropped her flannel on the counter and pulled Rose into a quick hug. “I’m sorry Rose…”

Rose tightened her arms a moment before pulling back, her expression was sad, but she still managed a small smile.

“But you’ve been thinking about him lately more than eve,” Gwyneth said with wide, earnest eyes, turning back to face them.  
  


“I suppose so. How do you know all this?” Rose asked quietly.  
  


“Mister Sneed says I think too much. I’m all alone down here. I bet you’ve got dozens of servants, haven’t you, miss?”   
  


“No, no servants where I’m from.”   
  


“And you’ve come such a long way.”   
  


“What makes you think so?”  
  


“You’re from London. I’ve seen London in drawings, but never like that. All those people rushing about half naked, for shame. And the noise, and the metal boxes racing past, and the birds in the sky, no, they’re metal as well. Metal birds with people in them. People are flying. And you, you’ve flown so far. Further than anyone. The things you’ve seen…” Gwyneth darted her eyes from Rose to Fable and she stared at her intently. “Oh but you’re the lady of the stars, riding into the storm. The faces you have had and will have. So many calling out for the blue bird to tell their story and alight the sky. The darkness, the big bad wolf, the silence, the drums- oh the drums of _war_. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, miss,” Gwyneth gasped in distress as her trance like state released her and she stumbled back into the shelves behind her.  
  


“It’s all right,” Fable whispered, setting a hand on the girls arm in comfort, though she herself was greatly disturbed by what she’d heard.  
  


“I can’t help it. Ever since I was a little girl, my mam said I had the sight. She told me to hide it.”   
  


The voice of the Doctor came from behind them, drawing their wide eyed gazes. “But it’s getting stronger, more powerful, is that right?” He was leaned up against the doorway, watching Gwyneth closely.  
  


“All the time, sir. Every night, voices in my head.”   
  


He nodded. “You grew up on top of the rift. You’re part of it. You’re the key.”   
  


“I’ve tried to make sense of it, sir. Consulted with spiritualists, table rappers, all sorts.”   
  


“Well, that should help. You can show us what to do.”   
  


“What to do where, sir?”   
  


“We’re going to have a seance.”

Fable stared at him a moment, wondering if he realized just how surreal this was for her. Just over twenty four hours ago, she’d been declared a witch and tied to the stake as a fire was being built beneath her… and here they were chatting with a maid who- though she was kind and proper, was clearly sensitive to something supernatural, and about to conduct a _seance_.

Her life had turned so utterly bizarre is such a short time, she no longer recognized it. But that was not something too terrible.

A handful of moments later, Fable was still shaking her head at his grinning face as they sat around the table, following Gwyneth’s instructions.  
  


“This is how Madam Mortlock summons those from the Land of Mists, down in Bute Town. Come, we must all join hands,” he said, sitting tall in her chair.  
  


“I can’t take part in this,” Dickens said a bit nastily.  
  


The Doctor looked at him pointedly. “Humbug? Come on, open mind.”   
  


”This is precisely the sort of cheap mummery I strive to unmask. Seances? Nothing but luminous tambourines and a squeeze box concealed between the knees. This girl knows nothing.”   
  


“Now, don’t antagonize her. I love a happy medium.”   
  


“I can’t believe you just said that,” Rose muttered, shaking her head.

Fable leveled a look at the stubborn man. “Please sir, you are not alone in your comfort being challenged by this seance business, but we are only trying to help.”  
  


The Doctor nodded along with her. “Come on, we might need you.”   
  


With a huff and a glare, Dickens sat in the only empty chair, and took up hands with Sneed and Gwyneth.

“Good man. Now, Gwyneth, reach out,“ he urged the maid to begin.  
  


Fable watched with her heart in her throat as Gwyneth closed her eyes and spoke.

“Speak to us. Are you there? Spirits, come. Speak to us that we may relieve your burden.”   
  


Fable’s blood ran cold when the whispers began.  
  


“Can you hear that?” Rose asked quietly, drawing Fable to nod once.  
  


“Nothing can happen. This is sheer folly,” Dickens remained true to his stubborn self.  
  


“Sir, that is enough out of you. Look at her,” Fable was losing patience with Dickens.  
  


“I see them. I feel them,” Gwyneth cried out breathlessly.  
  


The ghostly gas from before rose into the air. Fable tightened her grip on the Doctor’s hand, watching as a form slowly took shape.  
  


“What’s it saying?” Rose asked.  
  


“They can’t get through the rift. Gwyneth, it’s not controlling you, you’re controlling it. Now, look deep. Allow them through,” the Doctor said urgently.  
  


“I can’t!” Gwyneth cried out and Fable wanted to pull her in for a hug and give her strength, rather to keep going, to pull away from the entity speaking through her.  
  


The Doctor however, urged her on. “Yes, you can. Just believe it. I have faith in you, Gwyneth. Make the link.”   
  


“Yes,” Gwyneth spoke with an unnatural voice.   
  


Blue forms took shape behind the maid and they were unmistakably humanoid.  
  


“Great God! Spirits from the other side,” Sneed cried out.  
  


“The other side of the universe,” the Doctor said, and Fable realized he believed them to be alien.  
  


“Pity us. Pity the Gelth. There is so little time. Help us,” the entities spoke, their voices mixing with Gwyneth’s.  
  


“What do you want us to do?” The Doctor asked urgently.  
  


“The rift. Take the girl to the rift. Make the bridge.”   
  


“What for?”   
  


“We are so very few. The last of our kind. We face extinction.”   
  


“Why, what happened?”  
  


“Once we had a physical form like you, but then the war came.”   
  


Fable’s voice tried to catch in her throat, but she managed to ask thickly. “War? What war?”   
  


“The Time War. The whole universe convulsed. The Time War raged. Invisible to smaller species but devastating to higher forms. Our bodies wasted away. We’re trapped in this gaseous state.”

“The Time War…” Fable whispered, turning her head to look at the Doctor, but he remained focused on the beings.  
  


“So that’s why you need the corpses.”   
  


“We want to stand tall, to feel the sunlight, to live again. We need a physical form, and your dead are abandoned. They’re going to waste. Give them to us.”   
  


“But we can’t,” Rose said suddenly, her horror reflecting Fable’s own.  
  


“Why not?” The Doctor demanded hotly.  
  


“It’s not. I mean, it’s not-”  
  


“Not decent? Not polite? It could save their lives.”

Fable shook her head. “But they killed that boy am I right? How is that saving lives?”  
  


“Open the rift. Let the Gelth through. We’re dying. Help us. Pity the Gelth.”  
  


As suddenly as they came, the Gelth disappeared, leaving Gwyneth to collapse onto the table, spurring Fable and Rose to rush to her side.  
  


“Gwyneth?” Rose spoke quietly while Fable pressed the back of her hand to the weary girl’s brow, finding it cold and clammy.  
  


“All true,” Dickens whispered but everyone ignored him.  
  


“Are you okay?” Fable asked as Gwyneth began to push herself back up right. The girl didn’t speak so she nodded for Rose to help her walk Gwyneth to the chaise.  
  


“It’s all true,” Dickens again said pitifully.   
  


“It’s all right. You just sleep,” Fable told Gwyneth as Rose tucked a blanket around the weak woman.  
  


“But my angels, miss. They came, didn’t they? They need me?” Gwyneth said, trying to sit up again.  
  


“They do need you, Gwyneth. You’re they’re only chance of survival,” the Doctor said, encouraging her to Fable’s dismay.  
  


“I’ve told you, leave her alone. She’s exhausted and she’s not fighting your battles. Drink this,” Rose snapped at the Doctor before handing Gwyneth a cup of fresh tea.  
  


“Well, what did you say, Doctor? Explain it again. What are they?” Sneed said, saving the Doctor from Fable’s own words to forget about whatever he had in mind for Gwyneth.  
  


“Aliens,” the Doctor said  
  


“Like foreigners, you mean?”   
  


“Pretty foreign, yeah. From up there.”   
  


“Brecon?”   
  


“Close. And they’ve been trying to get through from Brecon to Cardiff but the road’s blocked. Only a few can get through and even then, they’re weak. They can only test drive the bodies for so long, then they have to revert to gas and hide in the pipes.”   
  


“Which is why they need the girl,” Dickens spoke up.

“Absolutely not!” Fable cried out, stepping between Gwyneth and the Doctor, her hands on hips.  
  


“They’re not having her,” Rose said, backing her up.  
  


“But she can help. Living on the rift, she’s become part of it. She can open it up, make a bridge and let them through,” the Doctor argued.  
  


“Incredible. Ghosts that are not ghosts but beings from another world, who can only exist in our world by inhabiting cadavers,” Dickens said with a voice slurred by the sherry he’d been downing since the seance.  
  


“Good system. It might work.”  
  


Rose shook her head. “You can’t let them run around inside of dead people.”   
  


“Why not? It’s like recycling.”   
  


“Seriously though, you can’t.”  
  


“Seriously though, I can.”   
  


“It’s just wrong. Those bodies were living people. We should respect them even in death.”   
  


“Do you carry a donor card?”   
  


“That’s different. That’s-”   
  


“It is different, yeah. It’s a different morality. Get used to it or go home. You heard what they said, time’s short. I can’t worry about a few corpses when the last of the Gelth could be dying.”

Fable stepped close to him, forcing him to look down at her when she placed a hand on his forearm. “Doctor, these are not _good_ beings. They have murdered someone, what makes you so certain they will be satisfied with _corpses.”_

A bit of hesitation softened his crystal blue eyes, but only for a moment, before his gaze hardened. “I have to try something,” he said in a dangerously dark voice.  
  


Rose pulled Fable back to her side, her gaze as hard as Fable’s and the Doctors. “I don’t care. They’re not using her.”   
  


“Don’t I get a say, miss?” Gwyneth said in a faint voice, drawing them to turn and watch her stand.  
  


“Look, you don’t understand what’s going on,” Rose said, shaking her head.   
  


“You would say that, miss, because that’s very clear inside your head, that you think I’m stupid.”  
  


“That’s not fair,” Rose said desperately.  
  


“It’s true, though. Things might be very different where you’re from, but here and now, I know my own mind, and the angels need me. Doctor, what do I have to do?”  
  


“You don’t have to do anything,” he said, finally saying something sensible for once.  
  


But Gwyneth was determined. “They’ve been singing to me since I was a child, sent by my mam on a holy mission. So tell me.”   
  


And to Fable’s horror, the Doctor complied. “We need to find the rift. This house is on a weak spot, so there must be a spot that’s weaker than any other. Mister Sneed, what’s the weakest part of this house? The place where most of the ghosts have been seen?”   
  


“That would be the morgue,” Mr Sneed said.  
  


Rose shared a defeated glance with Fable. “No chance you were going to say gazebo, is there?”

She said taking one of Gwyneth’s hands while Fable took the other. 

“I have a terrible feeling about this,” Fable said quietly as they followed Sneed to a cold basement with bodies laid out on slabs and covered with white sheets. It was a dark and grim place and every speck of her being urged for her to pull Gwyneth and Rose out of the room, to protect them from whatever horror waited for them.

**“** Urgh. Talk about Bleak House,” The Doctor muttered with a shiver.  
  


“The thing is, Doctor, the Gelth don’t succeed, ‘cos I know they don’t. I know for a fact there weren’t corpses walking around in 1869,” Rose spoke up, trying to think of the situation with logic.  
  


The Doctor spared her a glance and shook his head. “Time’s in flux, changing every second. Your cozy little world can be rewritten like that. Nothing is safe. Remember that. Nothing.”   
  


Dickens moved back a step. “Doctor, I think the room is getting colder.”   
  


Fable studied the lights, noticing the telling way they began to flare. “Rose, Gwyneth, take care. Here they come.”   
  


A Gelth appeared near the doorway. “You’ve come to help. Praise the Doctor. Praise him.”   
  


“Promise you won’t hurt her.” Rose demanded, holding onto Gwyneth.  
  


“Hurry! Please, so little time. Pity the Gelth.” The Gelth ignored Rose, never bothering to make such a promise, only consumed with their own plight.  
  


“I’ll take you somewhere else after the transfer. Somewhere you can build proper bodies. This isn’t a permanent solution, all right?” The Doctor offered reasonably but Fable feared that everything was too late. Something was wrong, with all of this.  
  


“My angels. I can help them live,” Gwyneth said, and in pained Fable how much the girl believed in what she was doing and wished she could be reasoned with.  
  


“Okay, where’s the weak point?”  
  


The Gelth floated to the spot beneath the arch of the morgue. “Here, beneath the arch.”   
  


“Beneath the arch,” Gwyneth said, moving to stand under the arch.  
  


Rose tried one last time, begging the maid. “You don’t have to do this.”   
  


But Gwyneth was already consumed with her wish to help the other worldly beings. “My angels.”   
  


“Establish the bridge. Reach out to the void. Let us through!” The Gelth cried out in their terrible voices that felt like ice in one’s blood.  
  


“Yes, I can see you. I can see you. Come!”  
  


“Bridgehead establishing.”  
  


“Come to me. Come to this world, poor lost souls!”   
  


“It is begun. The bridge is made.”

Fable pressed a hand against her mouth and watched in wide eyed shock as Gwyneth opened her mouth and Gelth began to come out of her, flying into the air and swirling around them. It was a horrible sight and turned her stomach.  
  


“She has given herself to the Gelth. The bridge is open. We descend.” The blue, ghostly beings suddenly turned an angry red, and bared sharp teeth, their voice hardening with violence. “The Gelth will come through in force.”  
  


Dickens spoke up with a stammer. “You said that you were few in number.”   
  


“A few billion. And all of us in need of corpses,” the Gelth said cruelly as the dead bodies that had once been still beneath their sheets began to rise up and stand.

Sneed tried to reach out to Gwyneth. “Gwyneth, stop this. Listen to your master. This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, and leave these things alone, I beg of you-”   
  


“Mister Sneed, get back!” Rose cried out as a corpse viciously snapped Sneed’s neck and a Gelth entered his broken body through his mouth.  
  


The Doctor pulled Fable and Rose back until their backs hit a metal gate. “I think it’s gone a little bit wrong,” he said quietly and when Fable looked up at him, he appeared so miserable she didn’t have the heart to berate him for not listening to herself and Rose. Instead she slipped her arm from his grasp and held tightly to his hand while watching the Gelth take over corpses, feeling utterly helpless.  
  


“I have joined the legions of the Gelth. Come, march with us,” the once Mr Sneed said.  
  


“No.” Dickens said.  
  


“We need bodies. All of you. Dead. The human race. Dead.”  
  


“Gwyneth, stop them! Send them back now! “ The Doctor cried out desperately.  
  


“Three more bodies. Convert them. Make them vessels for the Gelth.”   
  


“Doctor, I can’t. I’m sorry. This new world of yours is too much for me. I’m so-” he disappeared up the stairs and out of the basement, leaving Fable, Rose, and the Doctor to hide behind the metal gate, just barely out of reach of the Gelth.  
  


“Give yourself to glory. Sacrifice your lives for the Gelth.”  
  


“I trusted you. I pitied you!” The Doctor cried out, tightening his grip on Fable’s hand almost painfully.  
  


“We don’t want your pity. We want this world and all it’s flesh.”  
  


“Not while I’m alive.”  
  


“Then live no more.”   
  


Rose, her voice shaky whispered desperately from the other side of the Doctor. “But I can’t die. Tell me I can’t. I haven’t even been born yet. It’s impossible for me to die. Isn’t it?”  
  


“I’m sorry,” was all the Doctor said to that.

**“** But it’s 1869. How can I die now?”  
  


“Time isn’t a straight line. It can twist into any shape. You can be born in the twentieth century and die in the nineteenth and it’s all my fault. I brought you here. The both of you.”  
  


“It’s not your fault. I wanted to come.”

Fable managed a smile to Rose before tugging on the Doctor’s hand, moving his gaze to her. “I did as well. And… despite the invading aliens, it’s been fantastic.”  
  


“We shouldn’t be talking like we’re about to die. I mean… What about me? I saw the fall of Troy, World War Five. I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party. Now I’m going to die in a dungeon in _Cardiff_.”   
  


Her amusement at his disdain was chilled by Rose. “It’s not just dying. We’ll become one of them.”  
  


“Suppose it’s better than burning alive?” Fable thought aloud for a moment. “I honestly don’t know which I would prefer…”

Rose shook her head and gave her a determined look. “Well we’ll go down fighting, yeah?”   
  


“Yeah,” the Doctor agreed.  
  


“Together?” Fable added.  
  


“Yeah… I’m so glad I met you both,” he said quietly.  
  


“Me too,” Rose said.

“Better with three.” Fable whispered as Dickens ran back down the stairs, shouting as he went.  
  


“Doctor! Doctor! Turn off the flame, turn up the gas! Now, fill the room, all of it, now!”  
  


“What’re you doing?” The Doctor yelled over the noise the Gelth were making.  
  


“Turn it all on. Flood the place!”  
  


“Brilliant. Gas.”   
  


“What, so we choke to death instead?” Rose asked.  
  


“Am I correct, Doctor? These creatures are gaseous,” Dickens continued, ignoring her.  
  


The Doctor seemed to have caught on however as he nodded eagerly, his expression brightening. “Fill the room with gas, it’ll draw them out of the host. Suck them into the air like poison from a wound!”  
  


The Gelth possessed corpses turned away from the three of them and began to shamble toward Dickens who now looked quite frightened. “I hope, oh Lord, I hope that this theory will be validated soon, if not immediately.”  
  


“Plenty more!” The Doctor called out, turning to pull a pipe away from the wall. The Gelth gave terrible cries of rage as they were torn from the corpses.  
  


Fable followed the Doctor as he pushed back the gate, moving to stand before Gwyneth.

“Gwyneth, you’ve got to send them back. They lied to you, they’re not angels at all!”   
  


“Liars?” Gwyneth managed to say.  
  


The Doctor held back Fable when she reached to take the maid by the shoulders and tried to get through to her. “Look at me. If your mother and father could look down and see this, they’d tell you the same. They’d give you the strength. Now send them back!”   
  


Rose coughed from behind them. “I can’t breathe,” she choked out and Fable realized that she was struggling to breathe as well.

“Doctor, what-” Fable felt for his arm as she began to see dark spots.  
  


“Charles, get them out of here!” The Doctor yelled out.  
  


“I’m not leaving Gwy-” Fable tried to say but lost her breath.  
  


“They’re too strong,” Gwyneth cried out, her voice full of pain and despair.  
  


“Remember that world you saw? Rose’s world? All those people. None of it will exist unless you send them back through the rift,” the Doctor said.  
  


“I can’t send them back. But I can hold them. Hold them in this place, hold them here. Get out,” Gwyneth said, pulling something out of her pocket, something Fable herself didn’t recognize immediately, but Rose was sent into a frenzy over it.  
  


“You can’t!” Rose cried.  
  


“Leave this place!”  
  


The Doctor pushed Rose and Fable toward Dickens, though they never took their gazes from Gwyneth. “You two, get out. Go now. I won’t leave her while she’s still in danger. Now go!”

Fable felt tears burn her cheeks, but she did as he wished- certain he was lying and rushed up the stairs with Rose and Dickens. They didn’t stop until they stumbled out into the snow covered street, dragging in deep breaths of cold air and clutching each other as they watched the door anxiously the Doctor and Gwyneth to join them.

She nearly dropped to her knees with relief when the Doctor appeared but was immediately pushed back from the explosion behind him which sent him down into the snow. “Doctor!” She cried out as she rushed to help him stand. “Are you alright?”

“I’ll live,” he said quietly, and she picked up on the sorrow that rested heavily in his eyes.  
  


“She didn’t make it,” Rose said, watching the funeral home burn.  
  


“I’m sorry. She closed the rift.” He answered, holding himself stiffly.  
  


“At such a cost. The poor child,” Dickens said.  
  


The Doctor turned to Fable, grasping her shoulders tightly and leaning down to meet her gaze. “I did try, Fable, but Gwyneth was already dead. She had been for at least five minutes.”  
  


Fable felt ill at his words and exactly what they meant, but Rose spoke up, saving her from trying to come up with words to try and tell him it was alright when really it wasn’t.

“What do you mean?”  
  


He pulled away from Fable, dropping his hands limply to his sides. “I think she was dead from the minute she stood in that arch.”  
  


Rose shook her head in denial. “But she can’t have. She spoke to us. She helped us. She saved us. How could she have done that?”

Fable took her hand, fighting back tears. “Rose…” But she had no words of comfort for something as horrible as this.  
  


Dickens sighed deeply. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Even for you, Doctor.”  
  


Rose leaned into Fable’s side, resting her head on her shoulder as they watched the funeral home burn. “She saved the world. A servant girl. No one will ever know.”

Silently, the Doctor took her by the hand, and as they walked away, she took Rose’s in hers.

* * *

“Right then, Charlie boy, I’ve just got to go into my, er, shed. Won’t be long,” the Doctor said when they reached the waiting Tardis and began to unlock it.  
  


“What are you going to do now?” Rose asked Dickens.  
  


“I shall take the mail coach back to London, quite literally post-haste. This is no time for me to be on my own. I shall spend Christmas with my family and make amends to them. After all I’ve learned tonight, there can be nothing more vital,” Charles said with a great deal more energy than he’d had all night long.  
  


“You’ve cheered up,” the Doctor said, pleased that someone had at least… Rose and Fable were anything but cheerful and rightly so.  
  


“Exceedingly! This morning, I thought I knew everything in the world. Now I know I’ve just started. All these huge and wonderful notions, Doctor. I’m inspired. I must write about them.”  
  


“Do you think that’s wise?” Rose asked.  
  


“I shall be subtle at first. The Mystery of Edwin Drood still lacks an ending. Perhaps the killer was not the boy’s uncle. Perhaps he was not of this Earth. The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the Blue Elementals. I can spread the word, tell the truth.”  
  


The Doctor nodded him on. “Good luck with it. Nice to meet you. Fantastic.”   
  


“Bye, then, and thanks.” Rose bid her farewell with a handshake and kiss to the authors cheek, while Fable simply nodded.  
  


“Oh, my dear. How modern. Thank you, but I don’t understand. In what way is this goodbye? Where are you going?” Charles was all sorts of flustered by the female attention.  
  


“You’ll see. In the shed,” he nodded toward the Tardis. His chest felt a bit lighter when that drew small smiles out of Fable and Rose.  
  


“Upon my soul, Doctor, it’s one riddle after another with you. But after all these revelations, there’s one mystery you still haven’t explained. Answer me this. Who are you?”  
  


“Just a friend passing through,” he said quietly and shrugged.  
  


“But you have such knowledge of future times. I don’t wish to impose on you, but I must ask you. My books. Doctor, do they last?”  
  


“Oh, yes!” It always pained him how great creators of art never lived to see just how well their craft would someday be loved. Their night in Cardiff might have gone terribly wrong, and partially because of his decisions, but in this he could at least make a new friend happy.  
  


“For how long?”  
  


“Forever. Right... Shed. Come on, Fable, Rose.”  
  


“In the box? The three of you?”  
  


“Down boy. See you,” he said with finality and waved Fable and Rose into the Tardis.

Rose made her way up to sit on the jump seat with Fable lingering by his side watching Charles standing outside the Tardis on the monitor screen.

“Doesn’t that change history if he writes about blue ghosts?” Rose asked.  
  


“In a week’s time it’s 1870, and that’s the year he dies. Sorry. He’ll never get to tell his story,” he said.  
  


“Oh, no. He was so nice.”  
  


“If not stubborn. But he came around in the end,” Fable added.

“But in your time, Rose, he was already dead. We’ve brought him back to life, and he’s more alive now than he’s ever been, old Charlie boy. Let’s give him one last surprise.”

He and Rose smiled when astonishment colored Charles face. Fable looked less than impressed but that was likely because she’d never experienced witnessing the Tardis disappear before her eyes.

“We just dematerialized before him, didn’t we?” Rose asked, perking up.

“Sure did. Hanging out mindlessly in space for a bit,” he stuffed his hands in his pockets, wondering if they wanted to talk about what they’d just gone through. How he’d trusted the Gelth rather than their instincts. Something that had cost an innocent man and woman their lives.

But neither of them gave him the chance to ask, as they instead silently left the console room, he supposed to go clean up and change. Well enough then. He figured he needed to do the same after catching the strong lingering scent of gas.

He left the control room to find his room, wandering the corridors for a time, looking for his door. There was Rose’s pretty pink door with her name in artful calligraphy, the door to the observatory, the pool, the library, the garden, the squash court, even the kitchen made its appearance quite early on for once.

But the sight of the door with the little blue jay, wings spread wide in flight, gave him pause at how perfectly it fit the mysterious little bird that had found her way into his life. 

He needed to speak with her about how she was dealing with all of this, to know if she’d thought about opening the watch any. Thought his feelings remained mixed about that particular topic, it was something that needed to be addressed. Eventually.

The Doctor stood there, staring at the door blankly, when suddenly it opened and Fable appeared on the other side, wearing her black dress from before with her hair down, only it was damp and heavy looking.

“Oh!” She stopped in surprise at finding him there. “Did you need something Doctor?”

“Nope!” He jammed his hands into his pockets and leaned back on his heels. “On my way to my room, just took the long ways s’all.”

Fable tilted her head slightly but waited patiently for him to do _something_. 

“Right well, I’ll be along then- oh!” He caught sight of his door, simple and blue. “Here’s me. Ta!” He hurried to the door, not quite sure why he felt the urgent need to escape her presence.

The need to run. That was it. As drawn to Fable as he was, the mystery of her, the fact that she existed at all, drawing him to want to speak wither… he also wanted to run from her.

Returning her to 1963 Salem was not an option, and neither was dropping her off on some space rock. So running away to his room was all he had at the moment.

“Ah Doctor?” Her soft voice called after him, bringing him to a full stop with his hand on the doorknob. “I’m heading to the kitchen to make shepherd’s pie… as the only gentleman on board this ship, your presence will be required.”

He looked at her with lifted brows and quickly thought of an excuse to dodge out of her request. “Sorry but I don’t do the domestic stuff,” he managed before abruptly shoving into his room and leaning back against the door. As far as excuses went, it wasn’t the most tactful, but hopefully it would prevent any more such invitations.

Fable was a nice human lady. Rose too, if not a bit wild in her youth and inexperience. But it wouldn’t do to grow close to them, either of them. Rose with her human frailty and Fable the certainty that she would leave him the moment she learned the truth of him, their people, and everything he’d done.

Yes, best to cut the domestics off before they ever began.

* * *

* * *

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, Fable's first foray into adventures in time. Her role starts out a bit slow and observatory but as she gets more comfortable, she'll really start to take over more so hopefully yall are enjoying the story so far and the journey thats just beginning! So many skip over 9, but i love him dearly, and what i have planned for his and Fable's relationship was important for me to add. I love TimeLady stories but its something that hardly ever gets addressed so I'm excited to add my part.  
> Hopefully the format wasn't to wonky, something happened and it was just all kinds of messed up. I spent forever fixing it XD  
> Thank you so much for the wonderful response to chapter 1. the comments, the kudos, the bookmarks, each one just makes me glow and excited to keep writing so let me know what yall think!!!

**Author's Note:**

> well what yall think?


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